This is an excellent 1970s UK rock pop LP which reminds me of earlier Bowie times. Robert’s voice is very close to David’s. The backing band is the late Crawler after Kossoff’s departure. Many nice ballads on this LP. One song was one of my most played titles in 1977: “On The Other Side Of Town” – outstanding song!
No designer credited. Sleeve printed by Clout & Baker Ltd.
[More info on Discogs]
That’s not just a fine bichromatic use of Jack Deskin’s ITC Uptight Neon. The bold Venetian used in all lowercase is intriguing, too. It looks a lot like Italia, Colin Brignall’s take on Jenson Old Style (which in turn is based on William Morris’ Golden Type), drawn for Letraset in 1975. It even has the angled bars on f and t, which, to my knowledge, are unique to Italia. Other details like a g s etc. don’t match, though.
Shin Oka to the rescue! On his Daylight Fonts, he shows the glyph set of a film typeface that goes back to Jenson halbfett as issued by the German Flinsch foundry in 1902. This face has the right f, t and a. Some details like the off-center counters in b and d or the unilateral serifs in s still don’t match. However, Shin lists three different phototype versions, named Nouveau Jenson Bold, Ernesto, and a numbered style, 227. I’d guess that one of those is the typeface used for the album cover.
I never thought my album would end up on a typography site. Stranger still as my career moved from music to magazine publishing where I discovered the world of typography through designers Juan Carlos Mena and Derek Zinger. www.robertcampbell.info/its…
Thanks, Klaus, for your comment about On the Other Side of Town. I just uploaded a video for the song which you can find here.
4 Comments on “Robert Campbell – Living in the Shadow of a Downtown Movie Show album art”
That’s not just a fine bichromatic use of Jack Deskin’s ITC Uptight Neon. The bold Venetian used in all lowercase is intriguing, too. It looks a lot like Italia, Colin Brignall’s take on Jenson Old Style (which in turn is based on William Morris’ Golden Type), drawn for Letraset in 1975. It even has the angled bars on f and t, which, to my knowledge, are unique to Italia. Other details like a g s etc. don’t match, though.
Shin Oka to the rescue! On his Daylight Fonts, he shows the glyph set of a film typeface that goes back to Jenson halbfett as issued by the German Flinsch foundry in 1902. This face has the right f, t and a. Some details like the off-center counters in b and d or the unilateral serifs in s still don’t match. However, Shin lists three different phototype versions, named Nouveau Jenson Bold, Ernesto, and a numbered style, 227. I’d guess that one of those is the typeface used for the album cover.
I never thought my album would end up on a typography site. Stranger still as my career moved from music to magazine publishing where I discovered the world of typography through designers Juan Carlos Mena and Derek Zinger.
www.robertcampbell.info/its…
Thanks, Klaus, for your comment about On the Other Side of Town. I just uploaded a video for the song which you can find here.
Thanks for commenting, Robert! It’s fascinating to see your career shift. Did you remember who designed your album art?